The Government has recently launched a consultation on what it can do to make it easier and more rewarding for people and companies to give their time and money to charities. CAF has been championing effective ways of giving for over 80 years, so we welcome the Government’s interest in this area.

The consultation includes a broad range of suggestions and ideas. Some of these are:

Harnessing online social media to make people’s giving more visible to others

Allowing people to “round to the pound” when using debit or credit cards and give their “electronic change” to charity

For many years, PR messaging sessions have separated mission, vision, values and operational goals. They all play together, but they are all very different. And the ‘proof points’ on each are very different.

As a humble communicator, it has often been hard to persuade businesses to take the ‘soft’ side of this, the values, seriously (although I often point to the RWE takeover of Thames Water where the values in action programme contributed to a valuable shareholder premium.)

Businesses have happily reflected their brand values in their logos, and the statement – maybe even the language used – on their websites. But one of the great things happening now is that people are engaging with businesses on all kinds of levels. There is an increasing recognition that businesses are made up of people – that they have a human face, rather than being monolithic entities.

We all use petrochemicals, and accept that, however unpleasant, the bi-products of these need disposing of.

However, quite aside of the ethics, all companies, including those like Trafigura, need to regard every part of their operations as having an effect on their PR (public relations).

Your client Trafigura is now a household name in some sectors. Their solicitors, Carter Ruck, have been put into the limelight. Harriet Harman has had her say. The Twitter noise has died down. Has it gone as quickly as it came? Possibly.

The blogosphere is alive with it. The attempts of a firm of solicitors (Carter Ruck) to gag the Guardian are backfiring. The hashtag #trafigura (and those related) is unlikely to disappear from Twitter screens today, and a number of people have more than egg on their faces.